The Triple House Trials
by acciomischief
Summary: Voldemort enforces a new program at Hogwarts. The attendance of all Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Gryffindors is mandatory. When kids come out of the great hall confused, injured or dead, Sarah Frost, a secretly concerned Slytherin, decides to investigate.
1. Chapter 1

**I've recently started going through all my old scribbled story ideas and I found this one. It seemed interesting enough and so I decided to continue with it. Although I forget what my original plot was…Oops. It will come back to me soon. For now, I'll just publish what I have and see what kind of response I get.**

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><p><em>It's only a matter of time before they bring the maniac himself here<em>, thought Sarah, as she watched a line of death eaters march down the aisles in the severely empty great hall. Voldemort was sure to show up any day now and sit himself upon Dumbledore's chair as if it were a throne, destroying any happy memories a child had of the old headmaster being perched there. Surely he'd take extra care to make sure each and every non-Slytherin student was miserable. And so far, he was doing an excellent job.

Sarah hadn't known that witches and wizards did not have depression potions, or anything to aid someone through dark times. There was no magic cure that could drag someone out of the deep, dark pit that was misery. No charm to suck the gloom out of the world, or replace all despair with hope and joy... But Sarah would love to invent one. It would cure all of the Hufflepuffs, all of the Ravenclaws, and all of the Gryffindors (Though they seemed to be capable of drudging up a bit of optimism anyway), and it would certainly fix her.

It was extremely hard, being the only one in her house that felt the way she did. It was exhausting, keeping a constant pretense of 'venomous snake'. It was not her way. Sarah was different from the catty and vicious female snakes. Different from the snide and hateful males...In her house, she was of a whole different breed. A very rare breed of 'decent snakes'. Yes, Sarah was a Slytherin, but that did not mean she was an automatic servant to the Dark Lord. It shouldn't automatically pin her as a future criminal or as a pureblood supremacist….But it did.

"Hey, Frost!" Sarah looked away from the line of death eaters and turned her attention to Pansy Parkinson, who was currently regarding her with critical eyes from across the table.

"You don't seem too happy about all this." Pansy said, her muddy eyes narrowing. Several other kids looked their way at the prospect of catching a bit of drama.

"I'm not." Sarah replied truthfully, digging into her morning cereal, as she also dug deep inside her to pull out her practiced character. Pansy sat speechless a moment at her admittance, her ugly face stuck in shock mode, until she got a nudge from a girl next to her. She snapped out of it.

"You don't approve of what the Dark Lord is doing?" She asked loudly, bringing the attention of the rest of the table to their conversation.

"I don't approve of his methods." Sarah paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth, preparing to utter her next words. "It should be us up there."

Pansy considered her for a moment before grinning. The rest of the table turned back to their own doings, satisfied now that they had ridden all suspicions of a traitor amongst them.

"Soon." Pansy replied, before turning to her friend to discuss what the future might bring.

_Sick_, though Sarah, attempting to swallow her cereal. It scratched on the way down, a signal that maybe Sarah shouldn't have said anything at all. But it was too late now. And she supposed it only aided her in the long run by adding to her guise of 'Slytherin through and through'.

If she was going to do anything about the war, it would have to be in secret. She had learned in her very first year that you don't go around asking 'Why can't we just be friends?' and that it was better to keep true intentions on the down-low. And so Sarah had kept quiet all those years, and it had gotten her by.

And if she played it right, it would get her through what was sure to be an interesting year... Dumbledore dead and Harry Potter on the run surely meant big things were about to happen, changes were going to be made. Some already had been. For instance, more than half of the school was absent this year, death eaters roamed the halls, several school subjects had been cancelled or the teachers had been sacked, and there was absolutely no happiness.

Which brought Sarah back to her earlier thoughts. What everyone needed was a miracle cure for melancholy. She would get on that, sooner or later. Most likely sooner, judging from the faces of her piers. The Hufflepuffs were probably the worst, even if there were only a few of them. Most of the muggle-borns had been in that house, and since the new muggle-born ban, the purebloods and half-bloods left behind were severely worried for their friends. Not to mention family. That's what most of the Ravenclaws were: worried about their families. It was clear that the leftover Ravenclaws had thought themselves smart enough to deal with anything thrown their way, except perhaps the death of a family member. And the Gryffindors...Well, they were worried sick and depressed beyond belief...and yet they are able to well up enough courage and bravery (as they are known for) and fight off the darkness as best as they could.

The worst part of it all for Sarah was that she was supposed to be happy about it. As a Slytherin, she should be ecstatic about the Dark Lord's involvement with the school. But really, she was terrified.

It was an anxiety she'd been harboring for years now. What if Voldemort succeeded in taking over everything? She'd be in trouble then...No doubt all the Slytherins would become death eaters. And she'd be expected to join as well, because of the crest on her cloak. Or maybe she'd be set free because of her family name? She wasn't a pureblood, so where did that leave her at the end of it all?

"Listen up everyone!" Came a booming voice from the front of the room, and Sarah was surprised to find that it was female. One of the death eaters, a short plump woman, had made her way to the front of room and was standing in the center of the raised dais usually reserved for the professors.

Nobody dared disobey, and all turned to hear what she had to say at once.  
>Since the headmaster had been murdered, and the new one could care less, the opening feast hadn't really been...organized or planned, and so as the Hogwarts Express had arrived, they'd been sent off to bed without supper. Which was dissapointing to many, as it was usually a gargantuan feast. Sarah had put off eating sweets on the train to make room for nothing.<p>

"I am Professor Alecto Carrow, your new _Muggle Studies_ teacher." she said, her nose crinkling in disgust at the word 'muggle'. Sarah could already tell that no good would come from this woman.

"It is a mandatory subject, no exceptions, and each and every one of you shall be attending this year." There was a collective groan from most of her Slytherin housemates. Carrow chuckled lowly at them, and crossed her arms behind her back as she began to strut up and down the length of the teachers table.

"My brother, Amycus Carrow, will be teaching you Defence Against the Dark Arts, another mandatory subject." Here she smirked a little, as if she had some little private joke. A man joined her at the front, medium height with a beaver-ish face and beady eyes. Obviously Alecto's sibling, as the resemblance between them was clearly visible.

"We expect the best behavior from all of you, or there'll be consequences!" She said fiercely, her head snapping to the deathly silent Gryffindor table. Sarah didn't put it beyond her to attack one of them out of pure spite. Her suspicions were proved correct a moment later as she took a step down and moved through the aisle between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables.

"And if any of you little lions so much as look at me wrong, a good thrashing should be _the least_of your worries." She threatened, making fierce eye contact with each and every member of the house. All 32 of them.

"My brother would like to say a few words." She finished, returning to the front of the room via the aisle behind the Gryffindors. Immediately, everyone's attention was turned to the man at the front of the room, who was now clutching a scroll he'd pulled out of his interior cloak pocket. He began to read the words directly off it.

"Beginning this year, all students, excluding The Noble House of Salazar Slytherin, shall be enrolled in a new program. This new program is called The Triple House Trials and will be starting tomorrow. You will face numerous tests and evaluations to determine your competency."

Suddenly the great hall was buzzing with noise, sounds of protest and cries of outrage. Slytherin students were laughing.

"Silence!" Bellowed Alecto, jabbing her wand into the air and letting a roar of fire burst forth. The sudden display awed and frightened the others into silence. The fire massacred the 3 house banners above the other tables before dissolving into nothing above their heads, leaving ringing ears and fluttering scraps of burnt flag behind it

"He wasn't offering you a say in the matter, brats! Now shut your gobs, next time it'll be you the fire eats."

Nobody doubted her, and all sat quietly as they waited for her brother to continue.

"The trials are designed to prove if you are capable of carrying out a few _simple_ tasks that are to be completed within the next few months." Amycus finished, rolling up his parchment and returning it to the inside pocket of his cloak. Every student seemed to be unsatisfied with the lack of information, and began grumbling unhappily.

Sarah pondered the new information with curiosity. If the new program had been an idea of Voldemort's, (she believed it was), wouldn't he have assigned it to the Slytherins? Certainly he'd want his future minions to go through the tests and trials to assign _them _a level of competency?

"Can't be right..." She murmured, pushing her empty bowl to the center of the table. Pansy looked up at her once more, suspicion on her face once more.

"McGonagall." Alecto said, sounding very much like she was ordering McGonagall to hand out schedules, even though the professor had been about to do so anyway. McGonagall's lips twisted grimly as she walked out from behind the teachers table and toward the Gryffindor table. The other head of houses joined her.

"What now, Frost?" Pansy demanded, now that students were aloud to talk once again.

"Hmm?" Sarah intoned, looking up from the grained wood table.

"What are you mumbling about over there?"

"Oh, nothing." Sarah said, reaching for a drink of pumpkin juice. Pansy snatched it before she could get there, her eyes intense.

"Tell me."

Sarah sighed and let her hand drop to the table in resignation. She felt like kicking Pansy in the shins with the toe of her boots, but why bother? It would cause an uproar in the hierarchy of the house.

"I'm just wondering why the Dark Lord would test the others and not us."

Pansy set down the goblet she'd stolen and sat back, satisfied to get an answer but confused about what it was.

"I mean, we're going to be the ones to serve him, shouldn't we be proving _our _worth? The Gryffindors would kill themselves before joining him, the Hufflepuffs are too cowardly, and the pratty Ravenclaws can't do anything without a manual." Sarah lied, narrowing her own eyes at Pansy.

The bulldog of a female considered her words for a moment before speaking up.

"But we don't know what the task is. It could be...testing the cruciatus curse. Of course he wouldn't want _us _to be the test subjects." Pansy scoffed, flipping some of her hair over her shoulder.

Sarah remained silent as she thought about what Voldemort's task might be. Maybe he _was _practicing his crucio for when he finally met up with Potter?

'No,' thought Sarah, accepting her schedule from Slughorn, who was filling in for their old head of house, Snape. Voldemort was probably up to something else…Something even worse.


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright...so I remembered where I was taking this. Here is the second chapter! Please leave a review and tell me what you think.**

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><p>Several days passed, and Sarah became more and more curious as to what happened on Tuesdays and Thursdays when the other houses were sent down to the great hall. What went on behind those closed doors? On the first day of the program, all students had come out looking dull-eyed and dreary. Sarah had witnessed a Hufflepuff being cornered and questioned by Malfoy and his goons directly after and had discovered that the students had been forced to sign a silencing contract. Draco had demanded the kid to tell him more, but the boy's lips had been magically shut, as those type of contracts physically forbade the participants from confessing information on whatever had transpired.<p>

On the second day, the first Thursday, they had all emerged from the great hall with sheer terror written all over their faces. Questions burned within Sarah, and she longed to corner one of them for herself and try to find a loop in that silencing contract...

On the third day, Tuesday, Sarah had been in Charms class when they'd heard yells and screams from a classroom down the corridor. Flitwick had paused and all students had gotten up and peeked out to see what was going on.

Michael Corner, the Ravenclaw, was begging—kicking and screaming—holding onto the door jamb, as a grinning Amycus Carrow tried to levitate him away. The scene replayed in Sarah's mind constantly all day, and she could see it on her eyelids as she tried to fall asleep. Michael didn't return to breakfast the next morning.

The Thursday after, Sarah had waited outside the great hall in attempt to hear anything that might be happening inside. But there had been an extremely powerful silencing charm that made her wonder just _who_ had cast it. Waiting in the shadows until 9, the time the students were released, she hoped to catch a glimpse of something—anything— inside. But all she'd seen was Vannessa Crooks, knocked-out, being dragged by her hair to the hospital wing by a happy Alecto Carrow.

Sarah knew something bad was definitely happening inside, and she longed to figure out what it was. She could barely contain herself from cornering one of the professors and demanding to know all they knew. Surely McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were trying to stop the program? Did they know what was going on too? And the student's parents, what about them? Sarah suddenly wondered if any of the Slytherins had suspicions about what was taking place, and if any were wanting to put a stop to it?

Snorting to herself as she diced up a bunch of beetles for Slughorn, Sarah considered the complete unlikelihood of someone in her house feeling sorry for the others. Nott, her potions partner, looked up from the textbook he was referencing with furrowed brows, but she ignored him.

"All Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor students report to the great hall at once." Came the highly dreaded voice of Headmaster Snape over a newly installed magical intercom, disturbing their potions night-class.

'What I wouldn't give to know what goes on inside that room...' thought Sarah, pushing aside her beetles and picking up the tweezers for the lacewing fly legs.

_Lacewing_, thought Sarah, _had many uses_. _Lacewing_..._LACEWING!_ _Aha!_

"Lacewing!" Sarah exclaimed in triumph, an idea suddenly coming to her.

"...Right…Lacewing." Nott repeated, giving her a strange look. Obviously he thought her a bit off kilter, but that hardly mattered. She knew what she was going to do now. It was time to get her hands on some polyjuice potion.

Nott cleared his throat politely and she was reminded that they _were_ trying to brew a potion. Sarah coughed awkwardly and resumed plucking legs off of the lacewing flies, filling up a thimble-sized cup. She could always sneak into Slughorn's stores and see if he kept any. He _did_ enjoy out-of-the ordinary and questionable potions, so he should be keeping some. But if not, she'd have to break in anyway just to get what she needed to brew her own.

Unfortunately, it would take a whole month to make.

"Frost."

And she'd need somewhere to hide it as it brewed, because she couldn't very well keep it in the middle of her dorm room. Not anywhere in the Slytherin commons, as people couldn't keep their noses out of anything.

"Frost."

And she'd need to get some hair from someone. Someone in Ravenclaw, preferably, but anyone participating in The Triple House Trials would do.

"Sarah!"

And, embarrassingly enough, she'd need to take their clothes too. She couldn't very well slip into the great hall unnoticed with her own clothing on if she were in the body of a tall person…Or worse, a boy.

"Seraphina!"

Sarah was jolted out of her thoughts by the use of her real name, the one her parents reserved for when she had misbehaved as a child. She offered Nott a glare.

"What?" she grumbled, ripping the legs off of a lacewing fly with a bit more force than necessary.

"We were supposed to add the lacewing legs two counter-clockwise stirs ago," he said, frowning as their potion (which was supposed to be turning salmon pink) turned a crimson red.

"Merlins balls! Why didn't you say something?" She growled, tossing the cup of lacewing legs in to the cauldron even if they were a minute to late. If there was one thing Sarah hated, it was messing up her grades. And this lovely batch of scab remover was going down the drain.

"I did." Nott defended himself quietly, but otherwise did not argue.

Sarah sniffed, but decided that paying more attention to what she was doing would be a good choice.

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><p>It was the next night when Sarah had finally prepared herself enough to go and break into Slughorn's stores. She had spent a great deal of time yesterday researching polyjuice potion and had written the ingredients on a scrap of parchment incase Slughorn didn't have it ready-made. She'd be able to get what she needed quickly and get out.<p>

It was way past curfew, almost too late for any professors to be about, but she knew that there were death eaters all over the castle. Some could be lurking behind her...right...now!

Sarah whipped around and scanned the area behind her with narrowed eyes. Nothing. At least she thought so. She couldn't tell because she didn't want to risk using a lumos. Surely people could see it coming a mile away, and portraits would start yelling at her. Slughorn had taken an upstairs classroom when he'd begun teaching, and so Sarah had a long way to go from her dungeon common room and didn't want to cause any disturbances.

Believe it or not, there were some aspects of Slytherin she found suited to her. For instance, the green glow that emanated from the lake above the place she spent most of her free time was actually calming. The roaring fires both warmed her and provided her with something to gaze at, and the plush green chairs were welcoming and comfortable. The only problem with her house was the other people in it.

Sarah recognized that some of the traits most commonly associated with Slytherins were also some that she herself held. For instance, she wore a mask everyday. The snakes are known for being cunning and sly, and disguising how one truly felt was definitely an aspect of such things.

_CLANG!_

Sarah froze up in her tracks, her legs declining her efforts to move. Funny how her heart began to beat like mad, jumping about within her chest, when her limbs refused to budge. Down the corridor, Alecto and Amycus Carrow had emerged from one of the classrooms. Immediately her ears strained to hear their conversation.

"The Gingham girl and that ugly boy...Marv? Mark? That was his name wasn't it?" Alecto whispered, linking arms with her brother, who had just flicked his wand for light.

"Mark." He replied quietly, holding his lumos high, ignoring the protests of the portraits. They began to wander away down the corridor, and Sarah quickly willed her legs to move now that her initial shock had worn off. Tip-toeing after them, she stuck to the shadows and crossed her fingers in hopes of hearing anything about the program.

"That's the one. I think he made excellent progress. He came back with most of his appendages in place. And there was no chunk of eye missing this time." She chuckled lightly, almost hauntingly. Sarah shivered in fear as she followed behind them, unable to see the humor in a child with a missing eye.

"How old is he? Twelve?"

Sarah was close enough to see Alecto nod in the dull light. A plunging feeling washed through her gut as she tried to get closer. A kid of only twelve? The two began to speak in more hushed tones.

"—won't be long now until it's ready."

Alecto and Amycus stopped abruptly, almost causing Sarah to run right into the back of them. She hurriedly pressed herself against the wall as Amycus raised his wand and brightened his lumos to maxima, shining the light down the corridor. And there, with canisters of paint, was a masked student.

He (Sarah could identify that he had a distinctly male physique) froze up as the light hit him, seemingly suffering from the same leg-locking disorder Sarah had a few minutes earlier. There seemed to be a long, stretching moment of silence as the duo stared at the masked marauder, and he stared right back...and then he took off at a run. The professors reacted immediately, tossing curses after the boy. When none hit a target, they began to run after him with surprising vigor.

Sarah knew better than to pursue them. She had other things on her agenda, no matter how curious she was. She had to look at the bigger picture. She was dying to know what the Triple-House Program was more than she wanted to know the identity of the masked bandit, and so she meandered along the hall until she located Slughorn's stores. The sounds of Alecto and Amycus' curses and hexes had faded from earshot, meaning they had either caught him or had moved their chase to a new section of the castle.

Sarah pulled out her wand and gave it a quick wave over the perimeters of the door, checking for security wards or touch-activating jinxes. There was nothing. Slughorn had only locked his stores with a simple muggle key.

"Alohamora." Sarah whispered, and the lock clicked open, allowing her entrance. Obviously the professor thought nobody would be out and about with death eaters around, but considering Sarah had actually come across another student, the notion wasn't entirely valid. Slipping into the small closet-like room, Sarah pulled out her wand and held it up to the walls of potions around her.

"Accio polyjuice."

No luck. Slughorn had either put a protective enchantment on it or hadn't made one at all. Looking at the numerous shelves, Sarah debated the way in which Slughorn would've organized his possessions. Were the shelves color coded? Arranged in level of potency or lethality? Alphabetized?

A quick glance at the shelf to her left told her all she needed to know. There was _no_ arrangement. Everything was placed pell-mell, without any thought of order or classification. Grinding her teeth in frustration, Sarah picked up the nearest phial and read its label.

Teeth whitener. Of course. Trust Slughorn to have the most ridiculous potions. Returning the bottle to it's exact original place, incase the professor liked to memorize each potions precise location, Sarah began to scan the potions labels by the dim light of her lumos.

Burn salve. Hair growth formula. A bottle of Ginger root. Draught of the living death. Wit-Sharpening potion. Several colorful unlabelled flasks, presumably potions of Slughorn's own creation. Newts. Tantacular leaves…But no polyjuice potion. Sighing in disappointment, Sarah removed her own phials to take the ingredients she needed. Lacewing flies, the whole reason she'd even thought about making polyjuice potion, was the first thing on her list. Now she just had to find it.

Surely it would take forever...

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><p>Twenty minutes later, Sarah had already collected four of her samples. She'd recognized an organizational system within a few minutes of searching. Slughorn liked to keep the prettier potions and more interesting items up front, and the uglier, not so impressive things in back.<p>

Several brightly colored and pleasant smelling items were on display on the ornately carved eye-level shelf, which would certainly attract someone's eyes in better lighting. Artistic glossy bottles and phials lined the sides, and small containers with delicate designs upon them lay on a small table in the corner, set up as if they were a genius sculpture the world had to see. It was hard to appreciate their beauty in such a dark room.

The boomslang skin and lacewing flies had been relatively close to the front around the general 'ingredients' area, as the flies had an intricate wing pattern and the boomslang skin (when shredded) had a lovely color. Powdered bicorn horn had been just a row behind them, and then the bottle of fluxweed (which Sara had double checked was picked at full moon) was three spots to the left of it. All she needed now was a few leeches and some knotgrass. Knowing Slughorn would most likely keep the ugly creatures hidden, she grabbed hold of the ladder and rolled it around to a promising-looking area about four levels up. But she'd overestimated him. Spotting the leeches in the back of the shelf on the third level, Sara pulled out one of her empty phials and pulled the leech jar towards her. _Nasty little bloodsuckers,_ though Sarah while detaching two of the leeches, narrowing her eyes at the little slime trail between them. One began to nibble on her finger, and she quickly deposited it into the phial. She had too many bad experiences with leeches in her childhood to be nice to them now.

"No Sarah blood for you." She whispered maliciously, corking the glass tube and giving it a small shake in childish revenge. She slipped it into her cloak pocket with the rest, hearing a satisfying _clink _that proved she was going to be successful with her mission tonight. Only knotgrass now, and Sarah could see the boring little jar just a few feet to the right. Without descending the ladder, Sarah grabbed hold of the shelf and pulled herself towards it.

Knotgrass. Knotgrass. Knotgrass.

Her hand was closed around the jar and she'd lifted it from its place when suddenly she recognized the muddy bottle behind it.

_Polyjuice potion._

Of course.

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading this far everybody. I would appreciate it if you left a review telling me what you think of the story, be it characters or writing style or whatever!<strong>


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